A card issuing apparatus has been conventionally known by which a card which is stacked and accommodated in a cassette (cartridge) is issued. This type of a card issuing apparatus is provided with a lifting device in which a card stacked in a cassette is lifted (see, for example, Patent Literature 1). The lifting device described in Patent Literature 1 is provided with a lifting frame on which a card is placed, a long and thin rack for lifting and lowering the frame, a pinion which is engaged with the rack, and a motor for rotationally driving the pinion. In the lifting device, one end of the rack is fixed to the lifting frame and, with rotation of the pinion which is disposed on an upper side with respect to the lifting frame, the frame and cards placed on the frame are lifted.
Further, this type of the card issuing apparatus is provided with a paying-out device for sending out cards stacked in the cassette one by one (see, for example, Patent Literature 1). The paying-out device described in Patent Literature 1 is provided with a fan for sucking a card located at the uppermost position (card at the highest) of cards stacked in the cassette, a tire with which an upper face of the card sucked by the fan is abutted, a roller for sending out the card which is abutted with the tire, an auxiliary roller which is oppositely disposed to the roller, and a reversing roller for preventing two cards from being sent out (double feeding).
[PTL 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-118137
As described above, in the lifting device described in Patent Literature 1, lifting of a card is performed by a rack and a pinion. Therefore, a drive mechanism such as a motor for rotationally driving the pinion is required and thus a structure of the device is complicated. Further, in the lifting device described in Patent Literature 1, the motor is activated whenever a card is issued and the pinion is rotated to move a card upward. Therefore, control for the lifting device is complicated.
Further, recently, cards having been issued in large quantities from a card issuing apparatus are increasingly being collected and reused. In this case, a card collecting apparatus for collecting a card is installed separately from the card issuing apparatus and cards are collected by the card collecting apparatus. Collected cards are set in the card issuing apparatus to be reused. As described above, in order to reuse a card to be issued, a card issuing apparatus and a card collecting apparatus are required to be separately installed, which is inconvenient. Therefore, in the market, a card issuing/collecting apparatus is required which is capable of issuing a card from a cassette and collecting a card into the cassette.
However, in Patent Literature 1, a structure for carrying out a card stacked in a cassette is disclosed but a structure for carrying a card into the cassette is not disclosed. Therefore, it is difficult to realize a card issuing/collecting apparatus which is provided with a card issuing function from a cassette and a card collecting function into the cassette by using the paying-out device described in Patent Literature 1.
In view of the problem described above, at least an embodiment of the present invention provides a card elevating/lowering device which is capable of appropriately elevating and lowering cards with a simple structure and a card issuing/collecting apparatus which is provided with the card elevating/lowering device.
Further, at least an embodiment of the present invention provides a card carrying-out/carrying-in device which is capable of appropriately performing carrying-out of a card from a card storage part in which cards are stacked and accommodated and performing carrying-in of a card to the card storage part. Further, at least an embodiment of the present invention is to provide a card issuing/collecting apparatus which is provided with the card carrying-out/carrying-in device.